This curriculum guide for the teaching of composition contains more than sixty lessons for use with third and fourth grade students. Each lesson contains a statement of purpose, a resume, a list of materials, and directions for teaching the lesson. The major sections for both third and fourth grade are: (1) "Let's Pretend with Things,"…

This guide to a quinmester workshop course in creative writing emphasizes both content and style. Short stories, poems, plays, and informal prose are the literary genres involved. Performance objectives, rationale, learning activities, field trips and resource personnel, and lists of student and teacher resources are provided. (DB)

In stimulating students to read, study, and appreciate poetry by having them write poetry, it is helpful to devise ways to show off student work. Three ways of displaying student poetry which have proved to be successful are the publication of a class poetry magazine, the collection of one-line metaphors on a single subject (some of these…

The discipline of writing well is fundamental to the concept of writing as a liberating activity. (JH)

"Scratch,""Scribe," and "Scribble" are three strategies for teaching writing at any grade level. They are short, ongoing activities that do not require grading. "Scratch" concerns spelling, "Scribe" dictation, and "Scribble" the writing process. (SJL)

Uses students' responses to poetry as a tool for developing writing skills and literature appreciation. Matches literature materials to students' levels of experience. (RL)

The "theme approach" to language teaching involves many language skills. This paper discusses the area of track and field as a possible theme. The students research the topic, interview sports personalities, and write up the interview, thereby using all the basic language skills. (CFM)

Outlines ways to encourage students to think of writing as an act as simple as talking and gives practical suggestions for encouraging writing in the classroom. (SRT)

Eleven fifth- and sixth-grade learning-disabled students composed and revised stories using handwriting, dictation, and word processing. Dictated stories differed from other formats on product measures such as length, quality, and grammatical errors. Differences between handwritten and word-processed stories were found on the process measures of…

Notes that although fiction writing is a somewhat problematic part of upper elementary/middle school writing, it is important for children to be able to compose good fiction. Suggests two methods to benefit young writers: (1) expose them to a wide range of good fiction, and (2) preserve their right to create personal fictions. (NH)

Offers a method for teaching English using biographies in conjunction with creative writing assignments, for example, writing a short biography of another student in the class. (SRT)

Presents a classroom exercise in literary analysis that requires students to imitate Ernest Hemingway's writing style. (DF)

Describes a writing course that involves students in such experiences as remodeling a house, writing a fiction story for a "Redbook" editor, and studying Hopi Indians. (EL)

This article describes a variety of language arts activities for the classroom that can be done without duplicating masters. Children use materials such as the newspaper, telephone book, and advice columns for creative writing activities. (DF)